So for a brief moment instead of that here are some photos from a couple of panels at the Northampton Book Fair this weekend. The fair was in the Smith College Campus Center which is a beautiful building just outside the center of Northampton. The events were in two lovely, airy rooms on the ground floor and there was an antiquarian book fair full of the most tempting things upstairs. Wow, so many pretty things.

I saw some of the 10 a.m. Children’s picture book panel readers: Rich Michelson gave a, wait, no, really, fascinating presentation on Fascinating: The Life of Leonard Nimoy, Leslea Newman read her new book Ketzel, the Cat Who Composed (you can listen to Ketzel’s 21-second composition here), and Mordicai Gerstein (The Sleeping Gypsy, I Am Pan) strode up and just started drawing away on the white board. That was fabulous. Here he is drawing Hera (he noted she didn’t trust Zeus) and his drawing of the god Pan:

I missed Heidi Stemple and Jane Yolen (what a line up that panel had!) as I had to split to prepare for John Crowley’s reading of The Chemical Wedding in the next room over at 11 a.m. John is erudite and smart and very funny — and, hey, we sold books, which is always nice. He read and then answered quite a few questions, as the reading was well attended, and afterward I met some more local book and nonbook people.

Here’s one photo and perhaps a one-minute video I just tried uploading to Flickr:

I came back in the afternoon and — with mostly patient kid — sat in on the Ninepin Press celebration/reading where Jedediah Berry and Emily Houk read from, played with, and showed their current projects:

Jed read from The Family Arcana, Holly Black and Kelly read from Cosmogram, and Emily read from Zodiac B. Random people were asked to volunteer their birthdays to hear their “actual” horoscope and then for their Zodiac B horoscope — you can find out here which sign from Zodiac B you were born under. It was a lot of fun.

Quick mention for two crowdfunding things that are live right now. (We should have one of these some day for The Chemical Wedding!)

Sue Burke, whose translation of Prodigies(Angélica Gorodischer’s favorite of her own novels!) we will publish in August, is one of the people behind a current Indiegogo campaign, Castles in Spain, an anthology of translated Spanish science fiction, fantasy, and horror stories. I’ve been enjoying the Updates and today’s update says the book is definitely on, so yay!

And Jedediah Berry and Emily Houk’s new Ninepin Press card/story/hybrid/mash up/fascinating Family Arcana Kickstarter is, wait for it — wait, for my bad joke to make sense I have to say something about how packs of playing cards usually come in boxes and this project is all about thinking outside of said box. Fortunately for all concerned I have nothing to do with the project, I’m just a backer, woohoo! Some stretch goals have already been reached including one in which Kelly is one of the writers who’ll be writing a horoscope for all backers:

pledging at the $12 level or higher will receive our first bonus card pack: horoscopes written by twelve excellent writers. Details here.